Until the pandemic forced us to rethink learning, the structure of school went unchanged for decades. Educators certainly refined their craft, incorporating new tools and knowledge about how students learn, but if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep during math class in 1919 and woke up a hundred years later, he would have no trouble recognizing the rigid structures and routines of the school day.
School Discipline Is the Modern Day Chattel Slavery and Damn Near Everybody Is In On It
This post originally appeared in Hope + Outrage on March 5, 2021. Let me drop some numbers on y’all real quick. We know that starting as early as Pre-K, Black students are three times more likely to be suspended and expelled from school than white students and represent 31% of school-related arrests. To add to that, Black kids are five times more likely to be detained…
Dear Pandemic Homeschooler
Dear Pandemic Homeschooler, Nobody in your family has done this before. Take a minute and take that in. It is back-to-school time and there are a lot of questions surrounding what that looks like for children. Many parents, after losing faith in their school system, are eager to explore homeschooling. So, they turn to the internet and discover it is…
Critical Race Theory Bans Are White Supremacy’s Trojan Horse
This post originally appeared on Hope and Outrage from Tanesha Peeples on July 15. Y’all, are they still teaching Greek mythology in schools? Interestingly, it used to be one of my favorite subjects in grammar school. Now, in retrospect—and with an abolitionist mind—I realize it was just another subject taking up space that could’ve been used to teach real history.…
‘I’m Here:’ Hamline Starts off Strong
At Hamline Elementary in Back of the Yards, showing up and wearing masks are a snap. But can Hamline pinpoint students’ academic holes and fill them?
Could 100,000+ CPS Students Drop Out?
After a full year of pandemic schooling, data show that nearly a third of CPS students could become truant. Truancy–lateness, skipping school, cutting class–is the top of the slippery slope that leads to dropping out.
Back to School at Richards HS
Chicago Unheard will be checking in with Richards High School students and staff as the new school year unfolds. Here are some thoughts from students on going back.
Summertime = Time to Relax While Learning and Having Fun
While summer of 2021 isn’t, thank God, like summer 2020, it still isn’t the “normal” summer that I’m used to. And, this summer, schools around the country are focused on finding ways to re-engage families and students and addressing learning losses many children have sustained after nearly two school years of remote learning. For me, as a teacher and a…